"Letters, uncle!" exclaimed Susie; and Mrs. Farnham added,--

"I do hope so. She's been fairly mourning for some, day after day."

"It's all a mistake or neglect of somebody in your father's office in the city, Susie. There's three for you, and one is a fat one. Where's Port? There's as many for him."

Port was out at the barn; but Pen found him, and brought him in, as if his life depended upon getting those letters at once.

"Mother! Father!" said Susie, with a face that changed fast from red to pale, and back again, as she dropped into aunt Judith's big rocking-chair, and began to read those letters.

"Is it all good news?" asked Mrs. Farnham in a minute or so.

"All perfect, aunt Sarah. Mother seems to be doing very well."

She read on and on; and Port had now come in, and was doing the same; and it was as if with one voice they suddenly exclaimed,--

"How strange it seems!"

"What is so strange?" asked aunt Judith in almost a tone of alarm. "Did any thing happen to either of 'em?"

"Happen! No, indeed, but it's warm weather there. Father complains of the heat. Green gra.s.s and trees, and flowers and birds, and no sign of winter! Seems as if it couldn't be in the same world."

"I don't half believe I'd like that kind of winter weather, anyhow,"

said aunt Judith with emphasis. "When it's time for snow, I want snow, and plenty of it. 'Pears like to me, it would be kind of unnatural without sleighin'. Now, this here winter's been the most satisfactory we've had for four years past. It's been a real genuine, old-fashioned, right down cold and snowy winter."

"And it's getting colder now," said Deacon Farnham. "There's no telling where the thermometer'll go to, if it keeps on trying."

Nevertheless there was a curiously pleasant feeling to be had in listening to those accounts of the different condition of things in Florida; and Port was justified in remarking,--

"I'd like a little of that balmy air for a while in the morning, but I wouldn't care so much for it after I once got well a-going."

"I would," said Pen. "I could go a-sleighing, and keep my feet warm all the while."

"Shouldn't wonder if people down there would like a little of our ice at this very time," said her father; while Susie herself declared, that, except for seeing her mother and father, she did not wish to exchange winters with them.

When Corry came home in the afternoon, the first thing he said was, that he was glad Pen had returned at the midday "letting-out."

"The wind blows down the hill with an edge like a knife, and they say it's away below zero."

"It's coldest at the foot of the hill," said Pen confidently; and then, while Corry was warming himself, Susie and Port read to him tantalizing things about orange-groves and magnolia-trees and sunshine, and boat-rides on the St. John's River, away down in the sunny South.

"That's where De Soto hunted for the Fountain of Youth," said Corry; "and I guess Eden must have been around there somewhere. It wasn't down in Benton Valley, anyhow you can fix it."

"Nonsense!" said aunt Judith. "You'd get sick of any kind of Eden that didn't need a fireplace for six months in the year."

Corry's ears were beginning to feel better, and his opinion of the weather he was accustomed to improved as the tingling subsided. Still he was quite willing to discuss a little more fully the wonder of tropical and semi-tropical lands. Even after ch.o.r.es were attended to, and supper was eaten, and the whole family gathered in the sitting-room, they all seemed to feel more like talking than any thing else. Of course the knitting went on as usual, and Pen a.s.serted that her next undertaking in yarn was to be a pair of stockings for Porter Hudson. It seemed as if they had just got fairly settled, before the front-gate opened with a great frosty creak, as if it pained the hinges to be swung upon in such cold weather, and the sound of a well-known voice came faintly to the door.

"If it isn't Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen; and her mother said,--

"Glad she's come. It isn't far, but it's neighborly for her to look in on such a night as this."

"Hope Vosh is with her," said Corry as he stepped towards the door; and so he was. But they both had come upon something more than a mere neighborly call. Hardly was Mrs. Stebbins inside of the door, before she exclaimed sharply,--

"Joshaway Farnham, it's a wolf, I know it is! I heard it twice; and, if I don't know a wolf when he howls, it's because the whole country wasn't full on 'em when I was a gal. I've known a man that a'most made his livin' off the bounty they sot on wolf-skelps, till they found out that he was raisin' of 'em at a place he had away back under Sawbuck Mountain; and they paid as much for pups' ears as they did for growed-up wolves, and"--

"Angeline Stebbins!" almost shouted aunt Judith, "what do you mean?

There hasn't been a wolf down so far as this, these three years and more; and then they never came nigh any house except Josiah Rogers's hog-pen."

"Fact, though, now, I guess," said Vosh. "I listened hard, and I believe I heard one howl."

"Shouldn't wonder at all," said Mr. Farnham; "what between the deep snow, and the hard, cold snap. It isn't so much because they can't run down the deer so well, I believe, as because they somehow get bolder, and sort of crazy, in bitter frost. Did you hear more than one, Vosh?"

"Can't say, unless the same one howled several times. I heard it first when I was out at the barn, and it sounded just in the edge of the woods."

"I don't believe one could get at your stock very easily, or at mine.

You don't feel like a tramp out after wolves on such a night as this?"

"My gun's leaning against the door outside," said Vosh, "if you care to come along. Mother said she'd rather stay here till I got back."

"No more chance of killing one than there is of flying," remarked Mrs.

Farnham; "but if Joshaway wants to go"--

The deacon's pleasant blue eyes had been kindling a little under their s.h.a.ggy brows; and he was now slowly rising from his chair, and b.u.t.toning up his coat.

"I'll go as far as the woods with you, Vosh, and see what's the matter.--We won't be gone a great while, Sarah. I'll only take my double-barrel: a rifle's of no use by moonlight. Where are Port and Corry?"

n.o.body had seen them slip away; but their chairs had been empty from the moment when they heard the word "wolf," and saw Vosh Stebbins's shot-pouch slung over his shoulder. The deacon had hardly picked up his overcoat, before they were in the room again, loaded with guns and shot-pouches.

"Going for wolves, are you?" said the deacon. "You won't kill any. Not one has been killed this side of Sawbuck Mountain for years and years.

Come along. Wrap your ears up, and put an extra slug into each barrel on top of the buckshot."

Rifle-bullets answered capitally well for slugs, and even Pen and Susie felt a tingling all over when they saw those guns loaded. Ponto was called in from the kitchen; and he too seemed to be all tingle, as soon as he saw the hunt-like look of matters.

"He couldn't whip a wolf," said Corry, "but he might be of some kind of use."

"My father had a dog once," began Mrs. Stebbins; but she was interrupted by aunt Judith with,--

"Now, Angeline, you sit right down, and we'll have up some krullers and some cider; and they'll all be frosted back again in time to eat their share of 'em."

Ponto was doomed to disappointment that time; for Mr. Farnham, on second thought, fastened him up in the kitchen again, remarking,--

"He'd only spoil any other chance we might have.--Come on, boys. Judith is pretty nearly correct about the weather, and I guess I'm right about the wolves."

"I heard 'em," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but they didn't say they'd sit down under a tree and wait till you came along."

They were hurrying out of the door as she said that, and there was no danger of their walking slowly. They had not reached the gate, before Mr. Farnham straightened up, exclaiming,--

"I declare! Hark!"